Gaming audio headsets are deemed functionally successful when high quality audio is comfortably delivered to the ears for long periods of time. High quality audio benefits from a separation of game audio from the surrounding ambient audio environment. Ear cup orientation is typically fixed, or occurs along a single axis, and padding is typically used to seal the ambient sounds external to the ear.
When the seal is incomplete, both the game audio and the long term comfort are compromised, because ambient sound is let into the ear cup chamber and points of friction and pressure develop where the ear cups contact the flesh of the ear (pinna). Comfort and audio performance can be greatly improved by increasing the flexibility of the contact surface between the ear and the headset cups. The great variety of planar relationships in consumer ear anatomy has made the problem of good fitting ear cups worse outside of custom solutions.